The Team Fortress 2 Unofficial Official Thread

[Enidigm]

Pyro's are the lamest class ever. And achievements are retarded.

And i say that because of that stupid backburner of instant kill. That i can only get by grinding stupid achievements.

I have dozens of hours of play and only one unlocked weapon for any class...

[wisefool]

Medic is my most played class.

Pyros are one of the medic's worst enemies. The blutsager (leech needle gun) and back pedaling means I have a decent chance surviving or killing a single pyro.

Spies? I got an ubersaw and not afraid to use it.

Demomen thought.. HATE THEM. The nades mean you can die even if you are at maximum heal range around a corner, while the demoman is sitting by a dispenser 200 feet away.

Edit: Pyros are the reason the team needs one single heavy as a deterrent. One of my greatest pleasures playing as a heavy is not the killing. It's seeing all the enemy pyros scatter and runaway until they get reinforcements once I get into their LOS. RESPECT THE SAMVICH.

[Alan Au]

Pyro's are the lamest class ever. And achievements are retarded.

And i say that because of that stupid backburner of instant kill. That i can only get by grinding stupid achievements.

I have dozens of hours of play and only one unlocked weapon for any class...

The achievements are a bit annoying because they're tied to the unlocks, i.e. gamer tax. Fortunately, the unlocks are generally not straight-up improvements. Well, okay, except for the medic's Blutsauger.

The Backburner is definitely not an instant kill, especially against moving targets. There are also plenty of times when I've managed to flank enemies and wish I had an airblast. Speaking of instant kills and knocking people around, I need to remember to use the taunt-kill more often when ambushing people. (It's a trap!)

- Alan

[Arbit]

The achievements are a bit annoying because they're tied to the unlocks, i.e. gamer tax. Fortunately, the unlocks are generally not straight-up improvements. Well, okay, except for the medic's Blutsauger.

I agree with this sentiment. The unlocks are not worth stressing out over or wasting time doing some cheese achievement map.

The Backburner is definitely not an instant kill, especially against moving targets. There are also plenty of times when I've managed to flank enemies and wish I had an airblast.

The airblast is awesome for repelling ubers. If, say, an enemy ubered pyro is rushing a sentry, crouch and aim a blast at his head. You will lift him off the ground, then the knockback from the sentry propel him upward so quickly he will bounce him off the invisible skybox ceiling. Unfortunately, you don't get points for it, so of course no pyro is ever willing to take the 50 or so damage to preserve a sentry and nullify an uber at the same time. Not a bitter engineer, not me!

[sluggo]

The airblast is also awesome for winning Payload maps. 20 seconds and 5 feet to go, but 4 Red defenders parked on the cart? Airblast wins the map.

Of course, you'll get destroyed if you run in alone, so this requires other people are actually charging the cart and engaging the enemy, and not running away to hide. Like snipers tend to.

BUT I'M NOT BITTER AT ALL

[SamF7]

Nah, Airblast is a MEDIC's best friend. I've watched an ubered pyro come charging up to me (medic) and the pyro I'm healing, and my friendly pyro just continually poofs him up into the air. He can juggle that pyro for the entire uber. I can easily heal him faster than the enemy uber pyro can damage him.

Fun fun.

Of course, it's NOT so fun when it's MY uber'd pyro....

SamF7

[Arbit]

I just read on the TF2 wiki that the backburner doesn't get random crits. I usually pick the regular flamethrower/air blast anyway because I find it way more fun to use, but, well there's another (minor) reason to not use the backburner.

[Bad Neighbor]

The airblast is awesome for repelling ubers. If, say, an enemy ubered pyro is rushing a sentry, crouch and aim a blast at his head. You will lift him off the ground, then the knockback from the sentry propel him upward so quickly he will bounce him off the invisible skybox ceiling. Unfortunately, you don't get points for it, so of course no pyro is ever willing to take the 50 or so damage to preserve a sentry and nullify an uber at the same time. Not a bitter engineer, not me!

We need play on the same servers, because this is my single favorite thing to do on defense.

[Angrycoder]

Pyro's are the lamest class ever. And achievements are retarded.

And i say that because of that stupid backburner of instant kill. That i can only get by grinding stupid achievements.

I have dozens of hours of play and only one unlocked weapon for any class...

You should never be using the backburner. It negates one of your primary jobs as a pyro, disrupting ubers.

[sluggo]

You should never be using the backburner. It negates one of your primary jobs as a pyro, disrupting ubers.

There's at least one really good place to use the backburner: on defense at the start of Badwater Basin. Once Blue starts rolling the cart through the tunnel, it's easy to drop down from the clifftop above to the tunnel entrance and kill a bunch of them from behind if they're all looking forward.

Which happens more than it should. It's quite fun. :)

[Bad Neighbor]

I would also like to add that the backburner works well when on defense on the last point in Dustbowl. Most of the time the offense isn't watching their back at the corner and you can just pop out of the tunnel and let the crits fly. I haven't had much luck using the air blast to push people out into the open at that spot, so that's when I use the backburner the most. Otherwise, I just don't bother. The default loadout is my favorite for the pyro.

[fiveolddogs]

Is there an active Qt3 TF2 server these days? Or has it been permanently repurposed to L4D?

[ShyGuy]

Just got this game with the Orange Box and I think it's a lot of fun. Never played the original much, but this is funny.

[Cyranix]

Is there an active Qt3 TF2 server these days? Or has it been permanently repurposed to L4D?

No server. If you want TF2 buddies, take a look through the Zoho database and friend some folks up. Looking back through the last few pages of this thread will give you somewhere to start. Oh, and if you're playing on Steam, check the Qt3 Steam group and you'll find some people either playing TF2 or who have recently played it.

[Daniel Ford]

I only use the medic class, was part of the opposition during the last PoE / QT3 match, and will assist in brutalizing whoever challenges us during the next QT3 match. I've spent a fair amount of time with the TF2 crowd here, and I wanted to let you know that two members of the PoE userbase have made a cart-capture map named Swift.

It uses the alpine tileset, which is remarkably easy on the eyes after playing a year of TF2 in desert-industrial environments. In terms of gameplay, I'd rank it just slightly below badwater basin. In other words, it's a cart map that's better than badlands, 2fort, fastlane, turbine, well, steel, and hydro.

I think Swift is worth trying out; if you want to give it a shot, you can try it at the IP: 198.104.138.69:27017. There's a screenshot of the map here.

[Jab]

There is some news on patches as well as the Scout update on the blog. Looks like we could be getting it possibly next week with a few patches before.

[Bad Neighbor]

Lots of gameplay changes released today.

[BobJustBob]

Haven't played it yet, but I hate the sound of it. It sounds like the idiot CS players are getting their way and crits (one of the game's best features) are being phased out.

[ZekeDMS]

I don't mind if they reduce the randomness as long as they reward lucky streak crits, really. But I'd be very disappointed to see them gimped, as they can lead to some amazing moments.

[MarinusWA]

Stealthed spies are no longer able to pickup the intelligence. They must uncloak first

About time they fixed that. I abused this so many times on Turbine, inching the intel ever forward untill it was out in the open. Very hard to counter.

[Igor Muravyev]

Haven't played it yet, but I hate the sound of it. It sounds like the idiot CS players are getting their way and crits (one of the game's best features) are being phased out.

Maybe you should try using the Kritzkrieg if you want crits instead of relying on a voodoo crit system.

About time they fixed that. I abused this so many times on Turbine, inching the intel ever forward untill it was out in the open. Very hard to counter.

Well the spy has gone from being semi-useful in CTF maps to completely useless. I hope when they release the spy upgrades they make him not suck. That class sees the least play in competitive play.

[Daniel Ford]

It's still a bit early to say, but it doesn't feel like the overall frequency of criticals has changed. Heavy weapons guys in particular seem to be getting more crits on me than they did before.

[roguefrog]

Hopefully the Spy is next after the Scout.

[BobJustBob]

Maybe you should try using the Kritzkrieg if you want crits instead of relying on a voodoo crit system.

Every game needs random chance. If the better team always wins, actually playing is a formality. The match is won as soon as it is accepted.

[TurinTur]

Haven't played it yet, but I hate the sound of it. It sounds like the idiot CS players are getting their way and crits (one of the game's best features) are being phased out.

I don't like CS, and i also don't like the crits in TF2.

Now what? :P

[MarinusWA]

Well the spy has gone from being semi-useful in CTF maps to completely useless. I hope when they release the spy upgrades they make him not suck. That class sees the least play in competitive play.

I'll agree that as a solo class this makes a spy very hard to play with regard to CTF maps. And this despite the recent ammo for cloak change (which boosts overal spy usability a lot imho).

Still, this really had to go. Unless you build a dispenser with a pyro or heavy next to it firing non stop there was no way to stop a spy from doing the inching intel thing.

A Spy is still very usefull in combination with a regular attack. Disabling sentries and taking out engineers when your teams uber comes in helps things greatly. If anything, playing a spy is more about patience now then continuous backstab streaks.

Which probably does mean that most people won't play one anymore. Patience in FPS gamers? HA!

[Matt Perkins]

As a non-spy player, I'm extremely happy with the spy change. The rest I'll have to see as I play more...

[sluggo]

I really like the recent spy tweak where you can replenish cloaking time by picking up metal. I find myself playing more Spy because of it. The decloak-to-pick-up-intel doesn't bother me.

I also really like the engineer tweak where you can build level 3 teles and dispensers. In addition to being extremely useful, it also acts as a moron detector: when you have 6 people fighting to use a level 1 teleport and none of them will switch to engy for 10 seconds to upgrade it, it's time to look for another server.

It felt like they'd nerfed the demo for a few days, because suddenly my sticky jumps weren't launching me as far as usual. Last night they seemed to revert back, which made me happy, because my latest obsession is finding crazy long jumps to get me to places where I can ambush the other team.

I'm curious to see what the Scout upgrades are, and I wonder if they in any way influenced the crit rate tweaks.

[Cyranix]

I've played spy a fair amount, and I'm still fine with the "no intel grab while cloaked" change. The metal --> cloak tweaks have done a fantastic job for spies, making it possible to get into ideal far-behind-enemy-lines situations quickly without stopping to recharge. Plus, it's beautiful to plunder ammo boxes from enemy engineers and to refill your cloak meter while cloaked by standing on their dispensers.

Most people won't notice a big difference in the distribution of crits, but it does help that they put slightly more emphasis on recent damage.

Natascha's slowdown still seems less effective than it ought to be, but I guess the consistency issue was a bigger concern. All the other changes are pretty welcome in my book.

[Alex Handy]

Weird crit stuff in here. Not sure I understand the numbers behind it. Anyone want to take a stab?